Why I’m Panicking About Summer Break Ending (And Small Steps That Are Actually Helping)
I’m folding sticky swim towels on the kitchen counter last night, half-watching my kids chase each other around the table with a melted cherry popsicle, when my phone pings. It’s an email from the elementary school: 2024-25 class supply lists, first day drop-off procedures, and a link to sign up for after-school care. I drop the towel I’m holding, and my chest tightens. Summer break ends in 12 days, and I’m panicking.
Last year, I waited until the weekend before school started to think about any of this. I crammed supply shopping into a two-hour run to Target, fought with my oldest for an hour the night before to shift his bedtime from 9pm to 7:30, and got lost trying to find the second-grade classroom on the first day. By the end of the first week, I’d forgotten two snack days, missed the deadline for the class pizza order, and cried in my car after pickup because I was so behind on everything. This year, my youngest is starting kindergarten, so I’ve got all that plus new layers of worry: will he hang his coat up right? will he tell the teacher he needs to use the bathroom? will he cry when I leave? It all piles up fast.
My youngest trots over a minute after the email comes, popsicle juice dripping down his wrist, and asks if we can go to the community pool tomorrow. The words “we don’t have time for that, we need to school shop” come out sharper than I mean them to. His smile fades, and I immediately feel guilty. I sit down on the floor next to him, wipe the juice off his arm, and tell him I’m just being silly, of course we can go to the pool tomorrow. “Why are you sad about school starting?” he asks. “I get to ride the big bus.” That’s when it hits me: most of this panic is mine, not theirs. The kids are mostly excited or indifferent. I’m the one carrying the weight of last year’s messy transition and all the unknowns this year brings.
I talked to my sister, who teaches first grade at a nearby school, about all this a couple weeks ago, and she gave me simple, low-effort things to try instead of spiraling into late-night Google searches about back-to-school jitters. I’ve been doing them for two weeks now, and they’re actually taking the edge off.
First, I started shifting bedtime 10 minutes earlier every three days, instead of jumping straight to the school year schedule the night before classes start. Last year I tried to jump an hour and a half earlier in one night, which ended with my older son hiding under his bed reading comic books until 9:30 anyway, and everyone grumpy for a week. This year, I started two weeks out, so we’ve gone from 9pm to 8:20pm already, and neither kid has complained or even really noticed. Last night, my oldest actually asked to go to bed 10 minutes early because he was tired after a long day at the park. It’s such a small thing, but it means I won’t be dealing with two weeks of overtired, grumpy kids once school starts. That alone cuts my panic by a third.
Second, we did a low-pressure walk-through of the school and bus stop last weekend, instead of waiting for the first day. I always thought you only got to see the school on orientation day, but most schools let you stop by anytime when the building is open. We walked from our house to the bus stop first, so the kids could see exactly where we’ll wait every morning, and how long it takes to get there. Then we drove to the school, found the kindergarten wing door, and let my younger son run around the playground for 20 minutes. He climbed the big monkey bars, ate a popsicle on a bench, and I didn’t give him any long speech about how this is his new classroom now. For me, it took away that niggling fear that I’d get lost on the first day, holding up a hundred other parents while I fumbled for the right door. For him, it turns that big, scary unknown school into just another place he’s been to, instead of something he only hears about.
Third, I already marked one summer ritual to keep for the first month of school. This summer, our favorite thing was Friday night s’mores in the backyard. We have a little cheap fire pit, and even when it’s 90 degrees out, we roast marshmallows and eat them on graham crackers. I wrote every first four Fridays of the school year down on my calendar already. No matter how much homework my oldest has, no matter how early we have to get up the next day, we’re still doing it. It’s 20 minutes out of the week, and it means we don’t have to give up every good lazy thing just because school started. Last year I dropped all our slow habits the second school started, and by the end of September, we were all burnt out. This time, holding onto one small thing reminds me that transition doesn’t have to be all change all at once.
I still stared at the supply list for 10 minutes last night after the kids went to bed. I still haven’t bought new sneakers for either kid, and I know their feet will hurt for the first week if I wait too long. I still wake up some mornings with that little flutter in my chest when I remember how much changes in the two weeks after summer ends. I know there will be meltdowns. I know I’ll forget something important, probably more than one something. But these small, slow steps have taken the sharp edge off the panic. I don’t need to have everything figured out before the first day. I just need to get through the first week, one 10-minute bedtime shift and one Friday s’mores at a time.
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